


Knowing

by Other_Pens



Category: The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: F/M, Other, Regency, Regency Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 10:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7974262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Other_Pens/pseuds/Other_Pens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anne considers an offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowing

_I don't know._  
  
How stupid it sounded, even from the moment it had left her lips, and every moment she had echoed her words in her mind, over and over again.  
  
What else could she have said? Should she have said? Surely, she must KNOW.  
  
But there had been nothing, no thought, no word, no sense at all of what must be right to help her, or him.  
  
He must have been so anxious--she had felt it in his distracted manner, even before he'd begun to speak. Something had changed, so different from his usual easiness, his thoughtful ways. She had been half-convinced something awful had happened. She wasn't certain if something awful HAD happened. She had sent him away, after all. She had seen the uncertainty in his expression darken into heavy awareness, the faint glow of hope extinguished by the dull realisation of what her silence meant.  
  
Only she had no idea what it meant, only that it was there. Still, she couldn't think of any words to soothe her friend that might not be taken to mean more than she might mean them to mean. And so he had left, quickly and quietly stealing out of her company as though he were a dog she had kicked. He must think he disgusted her.  
  
Anne sat very still in the silence of the drawing-room before the sound of footsteps in the passage sent her upstairs, unable to counter her aunt, or anyone and their questions.  
  
Alone in her room, curled into the window-seat, she could think...only she didn't know _what_ to think.  
  
Perhaps it had been a mistake. Perhaps he thought she would receive a great deal more than £5000. Perhaps she'd misunderstood his meaning.  
  
How else could she explain it? He had always been good and kind to her...but he was simply good and kind. She was only Anne. And yet...  
  
He had spoken so softly...so tenderly. She had never heard his voice tremble before--but it had, ever so slightly. Had she not been listening so carefully, she might not have heard it catch, just the once.  
  
It had really happened. He had really said it. To her.  
  
He loved her...and did she love him?  
  
Anne pressed her shaking hands over her face, the scene, his words, her thoughts, all whirling together in her mind in an indistinct jumble.  
  
His manner, his face, his voice...these things were so changed, now...and yet they were as ever, assuredly his.  
  
Anne had noticed these things, these changes...but then, she had always noticed.  
  
Her cold fingers slid lower, pressed against her mouth as the shock of it hit her, lighting her eyes with the same hope that had been his such a short time ago--that he, unknowing and forlorn, had given her.  
  
She had always known.


End file.
